Some time ago I had to replace my phone because of screen - after years of using Samsung devices I found, that new screens are so bright, that PWM with 240 or 480 Hz is not good for my eyes (note: it's not good for anybody eyes, but some people don't feel it).

I made long research and started using Honor Magic 6 Pro - PWM up to 4320 Hz, big battery and various nice features. Currently I have forgotten, what are phone problems. Device is just working. It can be discussed whether phones like this are secure, but... hardware and software support are light years ahead Samsung now (and screen is much better even than Apple AMOLEDs).

To be honest - I don't want to return to Samsung after OneUI 7 drama, utilizing old elements, using other companys components (I don't speak about Exynos, Sammy has got own SSDs and flash) and excuses for batteries (my favourite: proving, that 5000 mAh batteries are used because of legal limits, which is totally false, because it's enough to use two battery cells instead of one).

Let's go further - laptops. Long time ago I was tired with (battery) problems in Dell Precision 5510 and typical problems of x86 laptops. Finally I have found device with 73Wh battery, matt 14 inch Full HD screen and 1 kg from Taiwan Clevo. It has got some weak touchpad and no BIOS updates, but simply worked and gave me up to 36h on the battery in reader mode (note: I was thinking about replacing it to Lunar Lake, but all models have something wrong, for example: after reading info about 56h in standby I wanted XPS13, but... white color is ugly; current Clevo L240TU has got power button with bright white color iluminating screen, etc.).

What about small x86 devices? Only from China, nobody else is producing them. I'm writing these words from GEM12 and this device is some kind of success for me - has got very rare reboots during gaming (I suspect AGESA or Linux compatibility rather than overheating or hardware), excluding this I have forgotten, where are problems (note: some people reported in Reddit about dying GEM12 & I'm using it around 8 months now).

Motherboards? Always from Asia (Asus, Abit, Asrock, etc.)

Currently I see less and less valuable American products in normal price. Macbook Air is still very OK (if you can accept glare screen or will find nice matt foil), Mac Mini also, additionally some HP Elitebooks. Dell seems went down with quality, is overpriced or with strange design (my opinion, I can have it).

And that's it.

Hollywood movies are not top-top anymore (many people are looking more for Korean dramas & last American magic show for me was "Top Gun Maverick"), You don't hear too much about American scifi anymore ("The Expanse", "The Orville" and Apple "For All Mankind" are exception, everything else like Apple "Foundation" or "Star-Trek Piccard" is just based on old worlds and ideas & you don't have anything fresh like "Stargate" or "Andromeda Ascendant" anymore), in internet there is just a lot about American food, Karens, pride and problems.

Now returning to Linux. I started to using it many years ago, played a lot with compiling kernel, programming, etc. After years I expect, that my machines (PC, whatever) will simply work and I can concentrate on my tasks. I tried to upgrade from Ubuntu 22.04LTS into 24.10 (yes, I'm lazy now) and booom - something wrong happened with my eyes. As experienced user I have found, that Gnome in 24.10 is based on GTK4 and GTK4 devs simply removed some font options. Problem was reported and horror started... blocking posts or saying in open words about replacing monitors to 4K or even 8K (for displaying fonts? what?), etc. etc.

Let's summarize some of these "things":

"You need to replace monitor & go further" - my answer: don't close yourself in small sandbox + don't take my freedom and don't say, what I should use. Linux is known from support for weak hardware & is used in some other configs that one home PC + one monitor. My words *are* about moving forward (Linux needs technologies known for years) and maybe also about implementing things in new areas... many times you cannot change embedded hardware or ask for something else in corporate world (when things are not working out of the box, you're out of business).

"Change to KDE or other desktop" - my answer: this will not help. I speak not only about Gnome itself, but mainly about GTK. And GTK apps are looking worse. Note: Gnome is advertised as main graphic environment and this will be used in some companies (lack of good font support can be problem for people, who will be forced to use it).

"You're toxic or hater" - my answer again: Gnome is advertised as basic Linux GUI, starting from some level basic functions must work till world end, additionally words about hate are normally coming from people, who don't have any arguments.

"Something was removed because of edge case" - my answer: what is better: not having them or making things worse for 70%, 80% or 90% of users?

"There are good reasons for removing LCD antialiasing" - my answer: this is excuse, I don't see any good reason for excluding technology known from ca. 25 years (even Steam stats show, that it's highly required in Linux world - majority of users have screens with lower resolution).

"It's too difficult to implement" - my answer: the most often excuse from poor programmers hiding incompetence or lack of time (remember: something like this was implemented till GTK3).

"Nothing can be done" - my answer: always something can be done, again excuse from people, who simply don't want to change anything

"Apple doesn't have it too" - my answer: you're not Apple, they sell excellent Macbook Air M4 or Mac Mini and you don't. In the end we're speaking about functionality for niche OS, which wants (in theory?) make users happy & many of them are already very, very annoyed.

"use Windows" - my answer: comes from people, who want make Linux growing. It's ironic, isn't it?

"Gnome hate comes from Gnome 2 to 3 drama" - my answer: don't live in ther past. I don't care about super hiper config & I'm very flexible, I just want to see apps running and not hurting eyes.

"Write yourself" - my answer: for years the same, can we escape from childhood and have one golden rule, that new code shouldn't break basic functions? (additional note: somebody tried to make patch for GTK4, but it looks for me, that answers on it could be done with big delays on purpose and I'm not attacking or accusing, but only saying my opinion)

"We need to teach people how to use Gnome" - my answer: we heard already about "modern audience" in Concord case. How it end? And again: you're not Apple, they have power to force for something, you not.

"Gnome is written by people in free time" - my answer: really? Do you live in the past?

"Once again you should be thankfull for such nice environment" - my answer: yes, but good code is good code and bad code is bad code.

"We don't understand why people don't like Gnome" - my answer: yeah, sure. This comes from nothing, right?

Gnome people speak a lot about diversity, equality, etc, but seems censoring a lot and simply dividing users. I remember, how Mozilla was involved in such mess, and now - Firefox doesn't have market anymore.

My open question: is Gnome/GTK development done against Open-Source and Linux?

To be honest let's extend things - currently we see a lot about American companies. Boeing, Microsoft, Intel, etc. don't have good reputation & the same goes with Samsung (mobiles, RAM, etc.).

Why I say about this?

If I see correctly, Gnome Foundation is located in California & we have problems too (fonts are only top of iceberg - from fresh things please look on X11 support removal or thread about lack of Lanczos resampling, from old plugins support broken from release to release).

In the opposite side we see Chinese or Taiwan devices, which just work...

Is it because devs from some places are simply underqualified or overloaded? Or because China wants to take market and "old" leaders are too lazy to make innovations? Or maybe, in the end, we have Concord versus Wukong situation here? (all these "modern audience" things)

I don't know, but I know, that users should start expecting some maturity from such projects like Gnome... and don't say: "this is my wallpaper, I'm happy, I don't care, if others have problems or not".

These kinds of behaviors in Gnome/GTK (ignorance, arrogance, censorship, diving people to worse and better, poor and rich, etc.) are working against Open-Source - in the end Linux has got wrong reputation, we have less bugs reports and less commits.

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with extra support free till 5 machines will work till 2032 (it means, that some users can wait with migration from GTK3 based Gnome and this also can decrease progress).

Few extra notes:

1. progress is required, but users should be always in first place.

2. I was writing about fonts in this post, but in few minutes I have found already few things about Wayland too:

• Think twice before abandoning Xorg. Wayland breaks everything! - are problems removed?
• X11 Session Removal FAQ - in this blog for moment there was a lot of politics, now it's almost fully removed (we still have something in the posts end), excluding this: author say, that all known problems are removed and all should generally work, but... (in the comment) says about lack of support for Nvidia 10xx series (my question: how many problems will come, when people will be forced to migrate to Wayland?)

3. No more excuses ladies & gentleman, boys & girls, you're not navel of the world. Problems were visible for years with x86 hardware and other areas. Don't be like some chefs in Hells Kitchen (tasting food with fingers). Market is tired with incompetence. If you can't do something, please don't broke existing things.

4. The only (?) honest thing about fonts in GTK4 I have read in the Ubuntu bug report - let's or more it's confirmed, we have political issue.